In the art of document handling it is desirable that the documents be maintained in a straight position throughout the extent of transport so as to be able to better control the attitude of each document during the processing thereof. The documents are caused to be moved along a pathway from a hopper past a feed mechanism, a separator mechanism, and a deskewing area to present each succeeding document in a correct position for reading thereof or for printing thereon. Various ways and means for correctly positioning each document have been utilized wherein opposed rollers of different document-contacting surface material provide drive or urgence of the document into a straight position, or opposed rollers are journaled at an angle from the horizontal to continually force each document towards an aligned position.
Representative prior art in the document aligning field include U.S. Pat. No. 2,995,364, issued to H. M. Frederick et al., which discloses item feeding and aligning apparatus wherein a plurality of opposed rollers are inclined at different angles to drive the items toward a horizontally aligned position. U.S. Pat. No. 3,070,204, issued to R. S. Bradshaw, discloses sheet handling apparatus having sets or series of feed rollers with tension springs urging the sets of rollers toward each other to maintain an edge of the sheets in alignment against the base of the sheet pathway. And U.S. Pat. No. 3,635,466, issued to G. A. Townsend, discloses an elastic mounting assembly having two sets of flexural members with a roller positioned for moving a document into registration with an aligning surface.